The present invention relates to the fail-safety of fluid-handling medical equipment, and more particularly to a fluid infusion line monitor.
It is very important to insure that equipment used to treat a patient is functioning properly and not placing a patient's safety in jeopardy. Iatrogenic (hospital induced) blood loss can produce severe deleterious physiological consequences for a patient as well as potential liability for health care providers. Both adults and infants can become quite ill from accidental bleeding though an inadvertently disconnected fluid line. An infant is noted to have worse effects from acute blood loss than an adult because an infant has less compensatory physiological protection than an adult and can lose a significant portion of his blood volume quickly. This danger is present, for example, when infants are provided with an umbilical artery catheter (UAC). These UACs are inserted by sterile procedure into an infant's umbilical stump vessels and have proven invaluable in the management of critically ill neonates. They are used to obtain blood for laboratory analysis, as a central conduit for fluid administration, for cardiac studies as well as for blood pressure determination. Occasionally, catheters may become accidentally disconnected due to patient activity, human error, or equipment malfunction, and via this unobserved disconnection, an infant may quickly lose a significant portion of his blood volume. Although a catheter is necessary for medical management of a sick infant, iatrogenic blood loss through the catheter would negate its therapeutic effects.
Adults are generally physiologically better equipped to compensate for an acute blood loss and may be able to communicate with hospital personnel in case of an accidental disconnection of a fluid infusion line causing blood loss. However, an adult may be extremely emotionally sensitive to his blood loss; consequently it is important to guard against accidental blood loss in any use of fluid infusion catheters.
Thus there is a need for a way to monitor the condition of a patient's fluid infusion line that is effective and reliable for preventing an accidental loss of blood from the patient, that is easy to use and inexpensive to provide.